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Solution to the American Mathematical Monthly Problem 11989

Article  in  The American Mathematical Monthly · September 2017

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 Solution to the AMM Problem 11989
Proposed by Aaditya Vikas Vaze
March 21, 2018

Undergraduate Student, Department of Mathematics, BITS Pilani K K Birla

Goa Campus, Goa, India 403726
email: f20140603@goa.bits-pilani.ac.in

Problem -11989
Let x ∈ (0, 1), then show that,
∞
1 1
−
Y
(1 − xn ) ≥ e 2 2(1−x)2 . (1)
n=1

Solution
The inequality (1) can be re-expressed as
m
X 1 1
lim log(1 − xn ) ≥ − . (2)
m→∞
n=1
2 2(1 − x)2
and hence proving (1) is equivalent to proving (2). Using Maclaurin series
expansion of log (1 − xn ) we get,
m
X x2 x3 x4 x6 x6 x9
lim log(1−xn ) = −x− − −· · · −x2 − − −· · · −x3 − − −· · ·
m→∞
n=1
2 3 2 3 2 3

 1  1  1 1  1  1 1 1
= −x−x2 1+ −x3 1+ −x4 1+ + −x5 1+ −x6 1+ + + −· · ·
2 3 2 4 5 2 3 6
To prove (2), in view of the fact
1 1 1
− = (−2x − 3x2 − 4x3 − ....)
2 2(1 − x)2 2
it is enough to show now that,
∞  ∞
X n + 1 X
xn ≥ cn xn ,
n=1
2 n=1

1
where cn = n1 + n12 + ..... + n1k where n1 , n2 , ..., nk are all factors of n including
1 and n.

1
 In other words, it suffices to prove the simple inequality,
n+1
≥ cn ∀ n ∈ N. (3)
2
This can be easily proved by induction on k, where k is the number of prime
factors (counting multiplicity) of n.
When k = 1, n itself is prime and hence
1 n+1 n+1
1+ = ≤
n n 2
holds from the fact that n ≥ 2.
By induction hypothesis, let us assume that inequality (3) is true for k = t, i.e.
∀ n=p1 p2 ...pt where each pi is a prime for 1 ≤ i ≤ t,
t 
n+1 Y 1
≥ cn = 1+ .
2 i=1
pi

We need to show
t+1
npt+1 + 1 Y  1
≥ 1+
2 i=1
pi
where pt+1 is any prime.
With the the simple fact
1
1+ ≤ pt+1 (pt+1 − 1) ∀ n ∈ N,
n
and some minor rearrangements, we get
t+1
npt+1 + 1  n + 1  1  Y 1
≥ 1+ ≥ 1+ ,
2 2 pt+1 i=1
pi

and hence the proof is complete.

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